


it's a long way forward (trust in me)

by fate-motif (Jo_Girard)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Class Solidarity, Fluff, Gen, Post-Akumatization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-07 09:28:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 3,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12838257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jo_Girard/pseuds/fate-motif
Summary: and it's a long way forward, so trust in mei'll give them shelter, like you've done for meand i know, i'm not alone, you'll be watching over usuntil you're gone…because i refuse to admit these kids wouldn't come back together closer than ever after hawkmoth trying to tear them apart





	1. the bubbler (nino)

The Monday after Adrien’s birthday Adrien coaxes Nino into their classroom. The Bubbler seems to have leeched away the old Nino’s jokes and smiles, leaving only the perfect target for Chloé’s remarks.

“Ooh, I see the class clown is back.”

Nino pulls down his red cap over his head after Chloé’s little taunt. Like a turtle hiding in its shell, Nino turns away from the rest of the class in shame.

“She never left,” booms someone in the back of the class in response.

There’s a couple of chuckles from the left side of the classroom. Marinette, Alix, Alya, and Max are all now glancing back at the back of the right row.

“Ivan! If you want to talk to Chloé, don’t make your voice loud enough for everyone to hear!” Miss Bustier turns back from the whiteboard to give a stern glance to the troublemaker.

Nino turns his head to the left, making him look as if he’s peeking from a safe spot.

“It won’t happen again, Miss Bustier,” apologizes Ivan from the back.

Nino slowly lifts his cap back into place, with Adrien’s reassuring hand on his shoulder, and glances back to Ivan with a thankful look in his eyes. Ivan looks down to his work sheepishly again. The twitching of the corners of his lips is all the “no problem” Nino needs.


	2. lady wi-fi (alya)

“I should have listened to you.”

“You deleted the videos and so far no one's sent you hate. It'll be fine, Alya.” Despite Nino’s reassurances, Alya can’t set her mind on Math. She grips her phone and lies down on the desk with a sigh.

“The views are still going down,” laments Alya. “And no one is going to  _ forget _ , Nino.  _ Ladybug _ isn’t going to forget.”

Nino looks around the library, catching several reprimanding glares from his classmates. So he lies down with Alya on the table so they’re both looking into each other’s eyes.

“Maybe she won’t forget, but she doesn’t blame you.” And he put a hand on her shoulder. “She  _ shouldn’t  _ blame you and neither should anyone else.”

A little hope pours back in Alya’s eyes.

“And she won't! Look, when has Ladybug ever been cruel to anyone that's been akumatized? Never!” He shakes her shoulder slightly. “What superhero are you going after that blames Hawkmoth’s victims? A new one? You should have told me - ”

Alya punches his shoulder lightly in return, and he laughs. “Ni -  _ no! _ ”


	3. timebreaker (alix)

Alix faces the class with a head held high and no shame the day after Timebreaker attacked. It helps smooth things out on most part, and the silent agreement not to bring the incident up lasts all day. That is, except for one humiliated athlete sitting behind Alix and ducking his head every time she even turned her head in his direction.

Any other day she would have been glad to call Kim a chicken. Not today.

This awkward silence runs through their classes until the end of the day. Then Alix stands up from her seat with her head low, and turns to Kim. “Kim - ”

“Kim!”

Alix and Kim both stare at Alya, who immediately interrupted the would-be apology. Kim nods to Alya to prompt her to speak.

“I have the recording of the race from yesterday if you want. The end is a little blurry but if you'd like proof that you lost or win…?”

Kim ducks his head. “I lost, Alya.” Kim admitting defeat hurt far more than his fear of Alix.

Alix sits on his desk and stammers, “S-so you don’t want a rematch?”

“Scared of a little kid, Kim?” crows Alya.

Kim looks into Alix’s encouraging eyes, and soon the two are smiling cockily at each other.

“You’re already familiar with the taste of dust, Alix,” he starts.

“Look who’s talking!”


	4. evillustrator (nathanaël)

Alix fixes her cap before opening her classroom door. Then, from inside the classroom, comes a startling bark. “NATHANAËL!” The unfazeable Alix stands up straight instinctively, and her cap falls over to the ground from the jerk. She shudders from La Mendeleiev’s volume, then stoops over to pick up her cap.

“...Second time this week! Is this what little respect you give to me, to my class?” Alix winces sympathetically, but still doesn’t enter. Instead, she leans against the brick walls by the class door, waiting for a better moment to come in. “...Visit to the Principal’s office. If you want to miss time from my class, it’d be best if you do it there. Haven’t your drawings caused enough trouble, in and out of this classroom?”

Half a minute later, the guilty Nathanaël walks out with his head low.

“Well!” Alix catches up to the distraught Nath and pats his back. He gasps out in shock, and drops all his notebooks. “Oh, sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Both are busy scooping up his artwork, but Alix lingers more looking at each paper than he does. “...Do you mind?”

“Sorry.” And she passes him the pile she’s made. “You know, teaching me to draw…” Nath raises an eyebrow, and Alix smiles. “...would make a great excuse to skip class.”

Nath’s eyes widen. “Are you serious?”

“Sure, why not? Done it hundreds of times. Ah, skipped class, not drawn. Never gotten caught. And between you and I, La Mendeleiev talks a lot of crap. You in?”

Nath pauses for a minute, then nods.


	5. dark cupid (kim)

Kim arrives at school thirty minutes early the Monday after Valentine’s Day, after the weather threatened to douse him on the way to school if he stayed too long at home. He spends half his wait huddled up by one of the outlets in the gym while charging his phone, his hood pulled over his head in the most blatant “leave me alone” gesture he can think of. Kim never pulls his hood up.

“Excuse me. Are you still charging?”

Kim tugs at the edge of his hood to look at whoever had spoken to him. Standing above Kim, Nathanaël peers from behind his sketchbook and bobs his head in the outlet’s direction.

“Uh...no, no.” Kim unplugs his own phone and stands to let Nath take his place. They shuffle each other out and stay in each other’s presence for an awkward moment. That is, until Nath breaks the silence.

“You don’t have to be ashamed about Friday, you know. No one cared about Chloé’s picture.”

Kim looks down at Nath to scowl at him, but he doesn’t get to answer back - not before he gets a look at Nath’s sketchbook.

“Ohhh - you’re drawing Ladybug?”

Nath’s stops in his tracks and looks away from the book, but Kim can tell he’s flustered now.

The art on the page is pretty dynamic - colorful, energetic, almost like an action movie set in paper. Kim crouches to get a full look at the page, and chuckles after taking the whole thing. “That’s cool, man. Can I see more of that?”

The remaining fifteen minutes of wait weren’t that bad, actually.


	6. horrificator (mylène)

About a week after the Inspector Jones fiasco, something shakes Mylène out of her self-defeating slump. She’s on her way out of the school on Wednesday before she’s stopped by the most unlikely person in class.

“Mylène! Uh - ” Mylène turns her head in confusion when Kim pulls at her backpack to get her attention. Just as she stares up at him to face him, Kim scratches the back of his head nervously and looked down at the floor. “Ivan. Uhm. Asked me you to. Heh.”

“Ivan? Asked you to do something?” Mylène tilts her head in confusion, trying to reconcile Ivan and Kim’s animosity to Kim’s words. But this week, Ivan has spent his time trying to cheer up Mylène in the silliest but most thoughtful ways  possible.

“Eh, what can you say.” He grins suspiciously. “It’s a surprise. You...have to come back to the class for it.”

Mylène nods thoughtfully, and walks to Kim’s side so they can show up to class together.

At the door, Kim gives an extravagant bow before opening the door for Mylène, like a squire for a queen. “After you, Inspector Jones.”

Mylène’s stomach drops for a moment, fearing this is one of Kim’s tasteless little pranks. But then Kim reveals the whole class huddled together on the floor, at the foot of the teacher’s desk. On the teacher’s desk, someone has placed one of those monstrously big TVs left over from the 90s. Mylène has no idea where in the school they could have dug it from. Nath and Rose are spreading bags of popcorn among the classmates. Alya has her phone out and has her camera pointed straight at her.

The whole class starts clapping and cheering for her when she walks in.

“Mylène! You’re just in time for the premiere!” calls out Nino.

Kim pats her shoulder affectionately. She can't move forward anymore, just stare and smile at her friends with tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! just to let you know that the second half of this fic i intend to publish soon, but i hit a snag writing the next chapter and i've had all this in my drafts for literally a year and i just wanted to drop what i had.


	7. the gamer (max)

“I’m sorry, Papa, I...I don’t really understand what you mean by that.” Mylène’s little voice falls, as she slumps her head on the practice test.

“There, there, Mylène. Let’s take a look at…” Fred Haprèle looks away from Mylène’s test exam. He surveys the whole room before looking at the boy behind him carefully taking notes on the mistakes he made on his own exam.

“Max? Would you like to assist me for a minute, helping out Mylène?” 

“Yes, sir,” mumbled Max. He leaves his desk and stands between Mylène and Alix to get a good look at her practice exam. “What do you need help with?”

The three work over Mylène’s functions until she figures out what she’d done wrong. Satisfied with the results, Fred pats his daughter’s head and continues to help Alix. Max himself starts to walk away back to his desk.

“Thank you too, Max,” calls out Mylène. “Congratulations on the tournament last week, by the way.”

Max stops in his tracks, unable from making a little strangled noise.

Mylène gives a little strained gasp. “Well, you...won for the whole school. Even if you...didn’t win  _ in  _ it. Nevermind. I’m sorry I brought it up.” And she covers her face with one hand in shame.

Max glanced to his side to look at Mylène out of the corner of his eye. “Thank you,” he mumbled awkwardly. Mylène’s heart rose when she saw him give her a genuine smile.


	8. vanisher (sabrina)

“Miss Raincomprix,” Seldom does La Mendeleiev start off a class by singling out a classmate, but after the fiasco of her last class, she looks at her class meaner than ever. “Would you like to solve Exercise 5.23 from your Physics textbook in front of the classroom?”

Sabrina’s face falls, but she doesn’t waste a minute to find the exercise in question on her tablet. If she was dismayed before reading it, she’s stricken after. Madame Mendeleiev must have taught Chapter 5 the class she was missing, and now she was taking her absence out on her!

“Well?” Madame Mendeleiev clears her throat. “We are waiting, Miss Raincomprix.”

Sabrina pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and then walks up to the blackboard to grab a chalkboard. All she can manage is to sort of draw the diagram the Physics exercise came with, and state the data given in the problem. From then on, she couldn’t move.

“Madame,” calls out Max from the back of the class. “I - I have - ”

“Yes, Max, we know you know the answer,” deadpans La Mendeleiev. “Your classmate is trying to work out the question on her own.”

“But - I’m in charge of taking notes for missing students,” he answers. “And I didn’t have a chance to give them back to her until today.”

La Mendeleiev sighs heavily. “Is that so.”

“Yes, Madame,” replied Marinette, as class representative. At least his lie was getting backed up by Marinette. Sabrina tentatively smiles, hoping to get away with it.

“Alright. Miss Raincomprix, you may pick up your classmate’s notes to complete the exercise.”

Sabrina thanks Max in a hurry at the end of the class.


	9. antibug (chloé)

Having never unsubscribed from Alya’s blog since its inception, its emails have bombarded Sabrina for a long time. Usually they go straight to the spam box, but sometimes they go to her main inbox. Tonight Sabrina is trying to get more sleep, so she can’t ignore the email notification just as she’s going to sleep. She shoves off her covers with a groan and reaches for her desk to grab her phone. It takes a while before she finally grabs it, and she taps the glass to unlock the phone with the intent to delete whatever message, email, or whatever is coming through to her. “ANTIBUG - CHLOÉ BOURGEOIS - FEED AND COMMENTARY!!!” Sabrina stares at the phone for a full half minute, before she raises her thumb and presses on the notification. 

The video starts on its own, even if Sabrina doesn’t press on the play icon. It starts with Alya’s usual cheerful dialogue, making some cryptic commentary towards Sabrina’s own akumatization before the new scoop begins: Antibug. Sabrina can’t look away at first, where the image of a very confident and angry Chloé in a color-inverted Ladybug suit duel Chat Noir, overpower him, then tie him to his own baton. She closes the window to the video without even making it halfway through. She knows what she has to do.

“Sabrina? How did you get my number?”

“It doesn’t matter. You need to take down the Antibug video.”

“But it doesn’t have you in it!”

“I don’t care! Chloé is my friend - ”  _ I wish _ \- “and you didn’t have to put her name out there for everyone to see! You should have asked for permission!”

Alya takes a deep breath on the other side of the line. “Alright. I’ll ask tomorrow.”

“And you take down the video for tonight!”

“Alright, alright! Goodnight, Sabri - eh? Oh, well.”


	10. reflekta (juleka)

Juleka leaves the park on her own - after so much noise and cheer for her at their private photo shoot, she needs a little quiet to unwind and think about what had happened to her in the morning. She doesn’t get very far into her own thoughts before two girls her age come running towards her at full speed, so quickly they almost crash into her when they find her.

“Juleka!”   
“Egh, Juleka!”

Juleka looks down on Chloé and Sabrina, who lean on each other to take a breath after their little running session. Her eyes start to well up again when she remembers the bathroom stall -  _ they didn’t want me there. I’m too ugly to be in their pictures. _ She tries to step back, but is stopped by Chloé’s ranting.

“You didn’t call us after everyone met up at the park? How horrible of you, Juleka, we would have loved to join in! The park is a wonderful place to take pictures, even if it is ugly to wear clothes like mine in.” Chloé tosses her hair.

“But - you didn’t want me to - ”

“I didn’t want you to be by Adrien’s side! You could be framed in the middle for all I care! Have you considered about  _ my _ point of view on the situation?”

Juleka blinks at the self-centered girl in front of her in confusion. “But...you didn’t _ have _ to lock me in the st - ”

“No?” Chloé looks down at her nails. “Well, so I didn’t. But I resent that you didn’t invite me to your little reunion - ”

Sabrina reaches to Juleka’s ear and drops her voice to a whisper.

“She means to say ‘I’m sorry’, and I do too,” and Sabrina pulls away, sighing.

Juleka frowns. “I - understand.”

“Good!” And just as suddenly as the two girls appeared, they marched down the sidewalk back to where they came from, leaving a very confused but mildly grateful Juleka with a heart still on the mend.


	11. princess fragrance (rose)

“I just wanted to tell him...how much he meant to me…” Rose blows her nose loudly. The rest of the class may have once just gone about their business, leaving Rose to her misery. Now it was Juleka by Rose's side, but the whole class now gathered around Rose - not offering any particular advice, but still keeping her company in her sadness.

"He knows now," mumbles Juleka, stroking Rose's hair with care. "He knows his security detail did not understand."

Mylène cleared her throat, then squeezed Ivan's hand for strength. "If they were French they would know, it wasn't your fault; you weren't a danger to him!"

Marinette enters the classroom and immediately heads to the center of the commotion in the back of the class. She kneels on the ground by Rose and Juleka. "Miss Bustier is on her way here," she admitted. "I know you're not done, but I could tell her you're not feeling well because of what happened, and you could go home."

Rose lifts her head and smiles through her tears.

"Bless you, Mari - " she blows her nose mid-sentence. "Marinette!

"We understand, Rose." She pats Rose's shoulder, at first shyly, but then with greater kindness.

Rose's eyes turn to the rest of the class. Her heart swells when she sees their faces - Alya, Nino, Mylène, Ivan, Nath, Max, Kim, Alix, Adrien, even Sabrina - and so many of them share Marinette's understanding.

They really had come a long way since Hawkmoth first struck Paris.

Rose comes to her feet, and Juleka - her beautiful, darling Juleka - squeezes her close with a hug. Together, they leave the classroom holding hands.


	12. christmas (adrien?)

Christmas Eve seems like the last day anyone would get akumatized - everyone is at home, with their families, enjoying a well-deserved holiday after a hellish year. Then a Nathalie Sancoeur starts calling every single member of the classroom, and the whole class drops everything to go look for him. Several parents actually go out into the streets searching for him, while the class whisper amongst themselves wondering what had happened, whether Adrien was alright - and whether he would come home at all.

Rose gets the brilliant idea to start up a group chat to gather them all and discuss the matter at hand. At first it's just their fears laid out for the others to see, but then Nino adds Adrien into the group chat. Just in case he's there. The messages turn from fear to encouragement.

_ Please come home, Adrien _

_ I hope you're okay, Adrien _

_ Come on, man, you could come to my home if you don't want to be home _

_ ADRIEN don't listen to them you can come to MY home you KNOW my daddy would let you _

_ My dad and I are going around in the car looking for you just stay where you are _

Eventually, the same Nathalie Sancoeur that had called them up answers that regretfully, Adrien had left his phone in his escape. The chat becomes inactive for about an hour, when a certain Pire Noel starts attacking them all, and Adrien is briefly forgotten.

They remember when Nathalie Sancoeur of all people, returns to their group chat. And asks them all if they can come over to the Agreste mansion to celebrate Christmas Eve with them.

Adrien comes back to his phone an hour after the dinner is over. If there was any chance Hawkmoth would prey on him this Christmas Eve, it was gone now.

_ Merry Christmas, everyone. Thank you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~okay now I feel bad that Lila doesn't get a chapter but I'm trying to stick with as much in-character and as much canon compliance as possible and I would like to see more of Lila interacting with the rest of the class before I actually write anything about the unity of the classroom and include her~~
> 
> anyway why not end with a nod at the Christmas dinner
> 
>  


End file.
